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Welcome to the Conquest of the New World FAQ. v1.0
compiled by Stephen McInerney

alias: CNW, CotNW

Any additions/corrections can be suggested to the author (who may
ignore them at his discretion), who can currently be contacted at
stevemci@dsb.mil.adfa.oz.au. Please put a CNWFAQ: in the start of any
subject line as it makes it easier to partition work email from private.
Spelling is from an Australian dictionary, my apologies to those
for whom this will surely annoy.
The more technical discussions in this FAQ assume that you have
read the manual that comes with CNW. If you have not already done so -
then do so, the manual contains a lot of very valuable information about
the game and its mechanics.

Acknowledgments:
This FAQ owes a lot of its content to the many discussions in the
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic newsgroup. Also a big thanks to Michael
Gerard from Quicksilver who has helped provide a lot of the detail about
the game mechanics and provided heaps of very good advice on playing
CNW.

Contents
1 About CNW
1.1 So what is CNW?
1.2 Is it a turn based game or real-time?
1.3 Is there a demo available?
1.4 What's the current patch version?
1.5 How long does an average length game run for?
1.6 What's the AI like?

2 Starting a game of CNW
2.1 Should I play as the Natives or Europeans?
2.2 Starting options
2.3 What's the deal with the two ship startup?
2.4 Where should I start my first colony?

3 Colony Building
3.1 Where should I start my first colony?
3.2 How do I get points for building colonies?
3.3 What's specialisation, and how does it work
3.4 Hints for the beginning CNW player
3.5 Fast ways to build up Colonies
3.6 Colony building strategies
3.7 War College Research

4 Exploring
4.1 Any hints for exploring?
4.2 How does the points for exploring work?

5 Combat
5.1 Which of the opposing countries should I attack first?
5.2 I keep getting beaten in the Combat mini game - any clues?
5.3 Combat Detail

6 Diplomacy
6.1 Peace?
6.2 Sabotage Missions
6.3 Spy Missions
6.4 Country feelings


7 Trade


8 Independence
8.1 When should I declare independence?
8.2 Bidding for peace
8.3 Independence Details

9 Other Stuff
9.1 My units take forever to get anywhere - how can I improve on
this?

10 Multiplayer

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About CNW
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1.1 So what is CNW?
CNW is a game of exploration, colonisation and the fight for
freedom from the oppressive and every greedy Mother Country (MC), and in
fact, any other country that gets in your way of domination of the
riches of the new world.
This game is a yet another with a very fine balance between
expansion and hunkering down and building strength - expand too fast
and you will get walked over - too slow and all the prime spots will be
settled before you get too them.
The big difference between this game and others of this genre, is
that in CNW you tend to only startup a few cities and build multiple
objects each turn in each city. This is opposite to other games which
have lots of cites and can only build one object per turn in each.
CNW was written by Quicksilver (www.quicksilver.com) and published by
Interplay (www.interplay.com).

1.2 Is it a turn based game or real-time?
CNW is a turn based game with a sub-game (also turn based) based
around the combat sequences.

1.3 Is there a demo available?
Yes there is a demo. It follows the tutorial in the full game. The
demo can be retrieved from Interplays web/ftp site at ftp1.interplay.com
or www.interplay.com and search from there.

1.4 What's the current patch version?
The latest patch is v1.11. However 1.11 is a progressive patch to
v1.10 so you'll need both 1.10 and 1.11 patches, which can be retrieved
from Interplays web and ftp site.

1.5 How long does an average length game run for?
Ages... This is not a quick and dirty game like some others -
especially on the harder levels. It has been mentioned that there have
been games where players were still fighting with muskets in the latter
part of the 20th century... This game rewards those who prefer the more
drawn out style of long term strategy gaming. An average time would be a
couple of hours a day over several days to a week. I tend to take 2-3
weeks to play a full game at the hard and very hard levels.

1.6 Whats the AI like?
Hmmmm loaded question. Personally I feel that the AI in CNW is one
of the better ones produced to date. This is (perhaps unfortunately)
reflected in the time taken between turns in the later stages of a game,
a wait of several minutes on a P133 is not unheard of. The price paid
for a more intelligent opponent. Compared to a human player who can take
around 1/2 an hour or more, its not quite so bad.
The AI in the combat sequence is positively nasty and too clever
by half - strategies on how to beat it (or at least come out without too
poor a showing) come later.
If you display a weakness in your defences the computer players
_will_ exploit it. They dont blindly attack your strongest points - but
have been known to bypass relatively defenceless colonies to attack
others. The computer has presumably not spied out that particular colony
to find how vulnerable it is. Basically the computer does not "cheat" to
discover your weaknesses - It is using the same methods and procedures
that you have to discover information.
The designers of CNW are quite proud of the fact that CNW is based
more on a human player and uses the same limitations that a human player
has.
{mig@quicksilver.com} "We wrote the AI to be as "human" as possible:
ie: a bunch of backstabbing opportunists. If the AI sees a weak target
really close to his powerbase, he'll often just go "oh, thank you!" and
take it for himself."


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2 Starting a game of CNW
***********************************************************************

2.1 Should I play as the Natives or Europeans?
A beginning player should steer clear of playing as the natives -
there is a quantum leap in difficulty between European and Native
players. Also the playing style between the two is quite different. The
natives also have restrictions placed upon them, typically seen with the
highest level of structure that can be built.
Also have a look at the section for beginning players - this provides
some good advice for beginning players.

2.2 What use are the various custom options and skills at game
creation?
RTFM is a good start :-) - but additional notes shown below.
Most skills vary from the 10 point cost shown in the manual the true
cost is shown in brackets after each name.

Miser(5): Useful in a points game - useless elsewhere. This is not a
cumulative bonus either. The bonus is ?%.

Colonist(10): Useful in a points game - useless elsewhere. Again is not
a cumulative bonus. The bonus is ?%.

Discoverer(5): Useful in a points game - useless elsewhere. Doubles the
value of each find. Eg A 10,000ft Mountain is worth 10 points, with
discoverer, however, it is worth 20 points. The overall addition is not
that great, youd be lucky to break 1000 bonus points with this skill.

The above three are all very valuable in a points game but Id give
preference to the Colonist skill - mainly as you tend to get bigger
bonuses from it - Its not unheard of to get a 3000+ bonus from
colonist.

Pacifist(5): The pacifist skill is a must take in a non-points dependant
game. It reduces the cost of research for defence by half. It provides a
bonus of 75% to your colony points too. Or a loss of ?% if you go on the
attack. Its low cost and huge benefit to unit defence makes this skill
exceptionally useful.

Cartography(15): This can be very useful to have in any game - as it
allows _all_ of your land units to move further. Hence explorers,
explore a bit more each turn. Military units move a bit further, thus
they get to a target faster. The increase in movement is fairly small.
This is a skill that is probably of lesser value compared to some of the
others.

Navigator(10): Similar to cartography but for ships only. This is of
even less use than cartography - better to get another skill.

Conqueror(15): This can be very valuable for a native player, but is not
so useful for the European player. Mainly as its generally only when
you have one or two colonies that you run out of unit "slots". Typically
youll have more slots than you can fill - even when you go on a major
military adventure.

Craftsman(10): Very valuable skill. Pretty much a must have. It
increases the value of commodities sold to Europe as shown in the table
below:
Wood,
Metal Goods
or Crops
Buy from Europe 10 30

Before Independence
Buy from Native ? ?
With Craftsman
Sell to Europe 6 18
Sell to Native ? ?
Without Craftsman
Sell to Europe 5 15
Sell to Native ? ?

After Independence
With Craftsman
Sell to Europe 10 18
Sell to Native ? ?
Without Craftsman
Sell to Europe 8? 15
Sell to Native ? ?

Admiral(10): Another not so useful skill. Can be valuable to the native
player though, as it will make it easier for the native player to sink
European ships before they disgorge an army on top of one of your
colonies.

Missionary(15): Missionary is very valuable to the Native player as it
gradually reduces the Hostility of natives towards you. This effect is
increased by the number and level of churches.

2.3 Whats the deal with the two ship startup?
The first ship is Capt. James Cook, Christopher Columbus - whoever
first discovers the New World. They send out a small wave of explorers
who can rapidly discover the riches evident in this new land. The second
ship carries your initial wave of settlers, come to make a fresh start
in the new world.
Both ships carry a small contingent of soldiers as well - however
this is where the game departs from reality, in that these troops are
not enough strength to start wiping out the locals. They are barely
capable of withstanding native attacks on your colony so use them
principally as a defensive measure.